Stress Awareness Month: Family Caregiver Stress - Aging Wisely

April is Stress Awareness Month

Family caregivers face a number of sources of stress. Not only may you be juggling many roles, but you may find yourself managing multiple crises, worrying about the future, arguing with family members over what is best and dealing with a quickly changing and hard to navigate situation. You may be part of what is known as the “sandwich generation”, caring for both aging parents and your children.

Our April blog posts will address caregiver stress: tips, resources for coping and how to get assistance. You will see a recurring theme, which is that while caregiving is very much a personal family matter, professional support and resources can help you…to do the best job as a caregiver and to reduce stress. One of the biggest worries caregivers express to us is the lingering doubt about decisions (thoughts of “Am I doing what is best?”). We will share some resources that can help with that issue as well as tips and experiences from working with families over many years.

If you are experiencing any of the following, check out our upcoming articles or contact us today about ways we can help, from resources suggestions to caregiver consultations and long-distance caregiver support:

• Feeling overwhelmed with caregiving duties
• Resenting siblings who don’t do as much as me
• Arguing with family members over what is best for our loved one
• Feeling that I am neglecting other relationships
• Anxiety over the phone ringing, afraid there will be a crisis on the other end
• Excessive phone calls throughout the day from my loved one
• Foregoing vacation plans because my loved one needs me all the time
• Giving up favorite activities for caregiving duties
• Difficulty managing work duties
• Financial stress due to paying for a parent’s care

The website StrengthforCaring.com has a great series of articles on this topic you may also wish to visit and review.

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